An order of monks and nuns who followed a strict ideal of abstinence, the Carmelites or 'White Friars' became prominent in England in the 13th and 14th centuries. They were well-connected with powerful supporters in the royal court. The Carmelite Missal was probably made for use at Whitefriars in London. Its beautiful decoration can be seen as an expression of both the White Friars' religious intensity and their highly placed patronage. At least three artists, one a foreigner, decorated it and introduced new ways of depicting the human figure and creating illusions of space. Their work brought English manuscript art into a new phase of the 'International Style' of western European painting. The missal's early 19th-century owner allowed his children to cut it up and paste scraps of its decoration into 'collages'. In the 1930s Margaret Rickert reconstructed the missal from its scraps. A beautiful historiated initial (letter bearing a picture) manages to present four scenes of the story of Joachim and Anna, the parents of the Virgin. The artist has cleverly used the illusion of a three dimensional church and the gate to structure the scenes. The elegant use of depictions of space is one of the innovative features of the artist's style.